marksteen

Hi, Up until now I have only done a few websites and had an email asking me to work on a site a prospective customer already has live. All I have done so far is emailed them back saying I am willing to take on there work and ask for pricing options ie if they want per hour costs or me to submit a full fixed price. What sort of price would some of you quote for a full fixed price for the following?... 1.Update existing PHP driven ‘Virtual UK’ database which can be accessed via our home page to include International virtual numbers. Task 1: Need to add 180 countries into country drop down which are in .csv format Task 2: Rename county to Region Task3: Need to update the Region and City tables in the data base Task4: To check the auto fill of drop down Region and city based on country selection. Task5: Integrate with shopping cart via Paypal Payments Pro 2. Tactical PPC activity and SEO 3. XML programming for insertion of our 0845 numbers into Google Analytics Also how easy is the above to achieve as I'm unsure on some things and just going to google and bluff my way through this (if I can) and then at least I know it for next time and gain the experiance. Thanks in advance, Mark

Cheers for the comments guys. Mark

Hi, I have had a few prospective customers now agree to hire me then before they sign a contract they decide to use a template driven website where they chose 1 of 200 built in templates that they can configure themselves. Does anyone have any pros and cons of an automated template site vs me designing one like SEO works better on a bespoke designed site (if done right) etc so I can say 'yeah they might be cheaper but BLAH, BLAH, BLAH your better to use me lol Cheers, Mark

Hi Duko, On my site www.AppliedSites.co.uk I have a 'link exchange' link in my footer to a links page. More importantly what's the url you want a link exchange with and where on the site would you back link me? Regards, Mark

Hi Blue, I know what you mean plus if I want to offer it as a service and I cannot find the so called 5000 search engines then if a company offers to submit to 5000 search engines there is no way a customer can find the 5000 and check that they have been submitted. A nice way of making people think they are getting a lot more for there money. Mark

Hi All, I see a lot of websites offering to submit url's to 300 - 5000 search engine directories. Does anyone have a copy of said list of 5000 directories or good sites with links to them?? Regards,

Hi, If anyone is interested in a link exchange with me either site wide or just on a links page send me a message or email me.

Obviously I'm not just going to rely on 'website design' keywords being in the URL but if it would improve SERPs with the same content and back links compaired to same content/links but without keywords in the URL then I would go with the former. Can anyone 100% confirn is google would actually break websitedesign down into the 2 individual keywords? Thanks, Mark

Hi, If you do a google search on 'web site design' in the results on page one I got www.techDESIGNs.co.uk and www.WEBDESIGNmedia.co.uk so google would pick the WEBSITE DESIGN out of www.marksteenWEBSITEDESIGN.co.uk with ease I would think? Mark

Was interesting at first but very tenious ATM in the past few week I have spent hours trying to find out why several windows updates would not install reading god knows how many threads and same thread but on a different website then this morning when I told the updates to install they did! A good result in the end but I've learnt nothing and so many wasted hours, my salary aint that great and not enough practicle experience and qualifications to move to a better job and really enjoy seeing a physical end result and a client happy with the job rather than my call center just complaining that there PC is slow and thinking 'about time' when I do get time to fix there PC lol and would love a job where I can work from home when we start a family I knew where you was coming from about I should know SEO before 'selling' the service but I don't b*ll sh*t people and would rather be honest.

Thanks for the comments. I know what you mean about say manchecterwebdesign.co.uk etc and I am quite new to modern website design as I work full time as an MCSE network administrator trying to build up something I could possibly make full time in say 5 years and I know I have a hard slog ahead of me and that's why my last website i did I only charged £100 and say Basic SEO included and even offering free websites to companies to build on experiance telling them I'm a start up and still learning some areas so they can decide if they want a cheaper but slower produced out of office hours website or go somewhere else lol

Hi, My website is AppliedSites.co.uk but I read a an article saying that it is recommended to have a keyword in the domain name/URL so I bought www.MarkSteenWebsiteDesign.co.uk I was just wondering if anyone else has found that having the keywords website design in the URL does help improve page rank even if just a little. Many Thanks, Mark

Hi, I've bought the .co.uk of my domain and going to do a new layout. I am thinking possible instead of a nav bav have nav images overlapping the bottom of the header and top of the content div's would this be done with the z-index? If so where do I plave it on the htm page as when I tried it in several places it threw a big space between the top of the header and the top of the screen Thanks for any input Mark

Thanks guys, My plan was to have a look at an example of a good webdesign sales letter and rewrite it making lots of template letter each one aiming at different target audiences so I can just use the same one for plasterers and a different one for petshops etc but at the moment I don't know whats the best way to even open the letter. I know I should try and aim at a 'Dear Mark' rather than 'Dear Sir' if I can get that information. I'll prob have to look at some 'write a killer sales letter site' and do it from scratch but was hoping for a kind sole to save me some time as I work full time and have a second job and trying to start a new webdesign business - (plays on pitty!) lol Mark

Hi, Does anyone have a good sales letter I can mail/email to prospective customers? I know face to face would be better but I work full time so want to start emaiiling and posting a first contact. Many thanks, Mark.

Many thanks 'T' I'll compair your layout code against mine to find out where I went wrong as don't want to just use yours as I'm here to learn Mark

Hi 'T Break' Took out all the position: relative's and got it looking similar, wanted to concentrate on the ff problems first but it still doesn't display in ff Mark

Many thanks 'T' I'll have a read later. I have decided to create 1 large right class floating it to replace the 4 div's on the right { I was the DIV } lol I will give h3 a background to replace the thin div's and float the 2 images right and should get the same results. Mark

Cheers for the comments! What do you mean about the navigation disapears? What ratios? ie what in relation to what? Cheers. Mark

Thanks for the comment. I removed position: relative and all the layout has gone to pot, the nav bar is at the top of the header the 4 div to the right all touch and the 2 left divs join into one, how do i reposition things rather than the position: relative? Many thanks.

Yeah I know I can't leave it not displaying in firefox and some good points like changing plain background colors with images would obviously give a little more style. Yeah was thinking about that barcode text logo which is prob more suited to an urban combat style cloths shop lol

lol yeah forgot to add that only tested it in ie7 and my works laptop firefox throws everything out but works laptop is having problems. At least nice to know it is the site in firefox not my laptop even though not the answer i was looking for lol

Hi All, I'm new to modern website design and work full time in IT as a network administrator (MCSE) but as I was due to be made redundent (not now) I did my own website design site aiming at sole traders and solo shops while learning my new trade. Enough babble about me so if you could give me any feedback on my new template/mockup that would be great but looking at a lot of sites on here wanting reviews I don't think mine is a patch on some of them but that said it's just css rather than lots of flash and java script and only 4 months study behind me (enough excuses lol) mockup menswear site mockup menswear site revised after some comments but still not viewable in FF. Thanks in advance! ps not working in firefox only tested it in ie7 thats for the people confirming that and have NO idea how to even start to rectify it not displaying in firefox lol